It is obvious that body armor cannot protect a user who is at risk unless the body armor is worn by the user. Accordingly, while it is important that body armor provide adequate protection to the user, it is equally important that the body armor be affordable and reasonably comfortable to wear, without unduly hindering the movements of the user, and without requiring the user to carry an unacceptable amount of excess weight. In addition, it is often important that body armor be concealable, so that the wearer does not feel overly conspicuous, and so that enemy combatants, terrorists, criminals, or other antagonists are not prompted to selectively direct their attacks toward unprotected parts of the body.
Accordingly, body armor is usually designed to protect against a specified maximum threat of a specified type or types. This is because an armor solution that is designed to protect against types of threats and/or magnitudes of threats that are not likely to be encountered by a user will generally be too expensive, too cumbersome, and/or too uncomfortable for the user, and will likely not be used consistently.
There are many industries and circumstances where protection against slash threats would be of value, but protection against other types of threats is not needed. Examples include the meat cutting industry, water-jetting applications, certain types of security, and many others. One standard test for protection against slash threats is the Home Office Scientific Development Branch (“HOSDB”) slash resistance standard for UK police (2006). According to this test, adequate protection requires that there be virtually no penetration of the armor by a specified “Stanley” knife (essentially a box cutting knife) moving at a specified angle across the armor at a specified speed and having a cut-through force of greater than eighty Newtons (80 N).
It can be difficult and prohibitively expensive to provide this degree of slash protection using only protective fabrics such as para-aramid. Accordingly, slash-protective armor typically requires the use of solid panels, typically made from ceramic or from steel or other metals.
One approach is to use a “multi-threat” armor system that offers protection against several threats, for example stab, slash, and projectile threats. Some of these designs include large plates of metal or ceramic, while others include a mosaic of adjacent or nearly adjacent tiles of ceramic or metal. While these solutions can provide adequate slash protection, they are typically expensive, heavy, and stiff, and can also be difficult to conceal. Many of these solutions also have very low air and moisture permeability, thereby causing the armor to chafe and to overheat the user. Hence, if protection is required only against slash threats, such multi-threat solutions are far from optimal.
An approach that is directed specifically, and more or less exclusively, to slash protection is chain mail. However, chain mail tends to be heavy and rough-textured, and is also very expensive to manufacture. Accordingly, chain mail is also far from optimal.
What is needed, therefore, is a body armor design that provides good protection against slash threats, and at the same time is affordable and reasonably comfortable to wear, does not unduly hinder the movements of the user, does not require the user to carry unreasonably excess weight, and is concealable.